Birkenstock doesn't need Supreme

Supreme might have a constant line outside of its doors—actually and figuratively—but there's one brand that doesn't care about the hype: Birkenstock. According to The Cut, Birkenstock has turned down collaborations with Supreme and Vetements, two of the driving forces behind the aggressively popular street style looks as of late. Why? Well, it doesn't need them.

Birkenstock has always been about functionality, far before it ever became a fashion statement. Even the thought of that—Birks as a fashion statement—feels far too fleeting for a brand that holds so tightly to its emphasis on quality and longevity. And while fashion might not be the most important factor, the brand is very well known for that exact reason. In 2012, Céline put a tricked-out black pair on the runway; in 2017 it opened a pop-up shop with Barneys; in the spring, it launched a collaboration with Rick Owens. Still, the fashion spots were never the goal.

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What the fashion industry thinks of Supreme

Everyone’s heard of Supreme. Even my mum, who’s 60 and lives in darkest Surrey, has heard of Supreme. “It’s that kid’s shop isn’t it?” she said. “Something to do with skaters?”

That regular people have heard of Supreme isn’t really in question. What Supreme means, however, and why it’s considered the prize shire horse to which luxury labels should be hitching their carts (and why I, a 30-year-old fan of Italian tailoring houses, impeccable tailoring and navy blue, have Supreme on my radar at all), is a question worth pondering.

Supreme was founded in New York by James Jebbia, an Englishman who opened the brand’s first store on Lafayette Street in 1994. Since then, the skate and streetwear label - which sells everything from T-shirts and key-rings to fake-fur coats and skateboard decks - has become a household name. Supreme’s Barbara Kruger-"inspired" red and white logo (which Instagram Stories has aped with its "strong" font) is as recognisable as Gucci’s interlocking Gs or Ralph Lauren’s little pony - and comes loaded with the promise of equal, perhaps even greater, style supremacy.

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Adidas, Supreme and Gucci are top brands with young people

Teens are flocking to streetwear labels — and running from brands that have not embraced the trend, according to survey by Piper Jaffray.

Demand for clothes and shoes with a “street” aesthetic soared up the investment bank’s semiannual list of brands teens listed as their favourite in a survey of 6,000 young consumers. Adidas cracked the top 10 for the first time among teens whose household had an average income of about $100,000, while Supreme rose from 10th place last fall to 7th in the latest survey. Vans saw the biggest gains in the footwear category, from the preferred choice of 9 percent of teens a year ago to 16 percent in the spring survey.

Streetwear’s rise came at Nike’s expense. The company remained the most popular apparel brand, but was picked by just 23 percent of teens, down from 31 percent a year ago.

“Both Vans and Adidas have this ‘open-source’ platform where they allow pop culture to help guide and influence how they are positioned with the consumer today,” said Erinn Murphy, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray and co-author of the report. “Having a very collaborative environment when it comes to the softer side of brands is very important. Both of those brands were open to that, whereas Nike has historically been a performance-led company.”

Brands taking a reinvented approach to their 1990s archives — the era of logo mania — are also appealing to teens, Murphy said. Gucci entered the top 10 in the latest survey, while lower-priced brands that heavily feature their logos, including Tommy Hilfiger and Champion, have also gained.

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Why are so many people so obsessed with Supreme?

It's 9AM on a Thursday and 300 young men are lined up along a street in Soho. The guy at the front of the queue, 18-year-old Nick from Wembley, lets out a sort of pissed off yawn when I approach him. He's been waiting here 23 hours, he says, trying to sleep on one of the camping chairs now piled up across the road. The guy at the back of the queue, 17-year-old Werner, flew into London this morning from his home in Finland, just to stand in this line for the rest of the day. 

In about an hour the doors to Supreme's London store will be opened, and everyone here – tired Nick; patient Werner; teenagers from Cardiff, Newcastle and Canterbury; the guy wearing a Supreme sleeping bag like a slanket – will get their chance to walk inside, past the sculpture of a smiley white ghost, and flick through the first batch of caps, coats, hoodies and T-shirts released this season. 

The majority of queuers are heading straight for the shirt featuring a photo of gloomy vegetarian Morrissey. The photo he didn't want Supreme to use, he said, because they once collaborated with a burger chain – and also just because he didn't like the face he was pulling. Werner knows he isn't getting the Morrissey shirt; it'll have sold out long before he makes it inside, along with all the other stuff he actually wants. But that's fine. He's happy to pay for a flight and a hotel – and then queue for six hours – in the hope he'll find anything in his size, even if it's just a pair of boxer shorts. 

This is completely normal. Every time Supreme releases chunks of new stuff at its ten stores across Europe, America and Japan – which is every Thursday from the start of each collection – hundreds of people skip school or work to get first dibs. A couple of weeks after my visit, the London shop manager tells Supreme's British disciples that if they're planning a pilgrimage they'll need to start queuing on the Thursday morning – instead of the Wednesday night – because the weekly influx of rough sleepers in £300 trainers is rankling the local council.

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